GRAPH EXPO 2004 CHICAGO -- October 12, 2004 -- Creo Inc. is pleased to announce that its legendary Staccato screening application is producing high impact printing at Graph Expo in demonstrations by KBA North America Inc., MAN Roland Inc., and Mitsubishi Lithographic Presses (MLP U.S.A., Inc.). Staccato screening increases the fidelity of printing by using high-frequency random placement of ink dots to resolve very fine detail. Creo Quote... "We're delighted to demonstrate Staccato screening live at Graph Expo before thousands of visitors," explained Troy Anderson, Staccato product manager. "It proves what Creo customers are telling us: that Staccato screening is an application for everyday use. It allows printers to differentiate their companies from the competition with high impact printing." About Staccato Screening... Staccato screening creates smooth process color tints and vignettes, without artifacts such as rosettes and screening moiré, shade stepping or abrupt tone jumps. Staccato also uses ink more efficiently than other screening methods, providing colors that are richer and brighter. The end result is printed material that stands out, and process builds that look like special colors. 10-micron Staccato screening is the finest screen available and is used for premium applications. KBA North America is printing with Staccato 10 on the new version of the KBA Rapida 105 B1 (41") sheetfed press at booth #1054. The MAN Roland 700 six-color (41") sheetfed press with double coating units is also printing with 10-micron Staccato screening using Creo Positive Thermal Plates at booth #1017. Mitsubishi is using 20-micron Staccato screening on the new Diamond 3000 Tandem Perfecting press in a 4-over-4 configuration. Mitsubishi features a complete Creo prepress installation at booth #3618 with the new Prinergy Evo workflow driving the Lotem 800 Quantum computer-to-plate device imaging Creo Positive Thermal Plates that are processed in the Creo Thermal Plate Processor. Customers Attribute Success to Staccato... Creo customer Fort Dearborn Company of Niles, IL is using Staccato screening to expand product offerings to the paint and coatings market and attributes Staccato to quality improvements. "Staccato FM screening has definitely helped us achieve greater consistency and repeatability," said Gyas Uddin, director of color technology, Virtualcolor, the prepress division of Fort Dearborn Company. "One of the main reasons we adopted Staccato was its smooth lay-down of ink on a variety of substrates. Before Staccato FM, we'd had problems with graininess and noise." Fort Dearborn now uses Staccato screening to print color cards for some of the world's largest paint manufacturers and matches screening resolution to the job. For cartons, they use 35 micron, for paper labels 20 micron, and they are beginning to use 10 micron screening on some projects. At Graph Expo... At booth #4006, Creo is exhibiting approximately 2,000 printing samples produced by Creo customers using Staccato screening. Graph Expo 2004, North America's largest trade show for the printing and graphic arts industries, is underway in Chicago, IL, October 10-13, 2004.